Sunlight
by Mornen
Summary: The moonlight did not frighten him as much as the sun.


Sometimes the sunlight was so bright he wanted to cry. It liked to creep in, stiff and golden, and make the world shimmer and disappear into maddening colours. Then there were only shapes with blurred edges coming together to form a world.

In the evenings when the sun was low he would walk out along the edge of the lake and watch the green grass turn yellow and burn briefly before becoming grey and melting into one long ocean, unmoving under the twilight.

In the mornings, when he stood watching and the sun rose like a hovering drop of red blood ready to break over the horizon and flood the land, long shadows would shrink and fade. He had never before seen shadows that grew, shadows that shrivelled, shadows that lengthened, and then disappeared. In the Light of the Trees, the shadows had never changed sizes by time of day. They had only grown in darkness or lightness. They had not moved like they did now. Now they were dizzying and mesmerizing, and they took up too much thought and too much space in the world.

The moonlight did not frighten him as much as the sun. He had welcomed the silver moon as they stepped upon Middle-earth and finally the ice and the snow beneath stars was over. It came so gently, filling the sky slowly. It rested in the dark heavens and cut out soft shadows on the ground. And they had laughed in victory because not all of them had died.

It was strange to say that he liked the winters more than the summers. For even though there were times in the winter when the snow would explode with light, and the yellow of the sun turned white a thousand times over, and he would stand, unseeing, blinded by the cold and wish that the sun were a nightmare, and wish that the snow were a bad dream, in the summertime the sun barely slept, and its light glared upon them for hours and forever. In the winter the sun slipped away for days, and the sky was moonlight and starlight and gradient lights in green and orange and purple that filled the sky and then faded again. The winter was cold, and it made him think of death, but that was better.

It was better than the summers when the grass turned brown, and the lake quivered uneasily, and the sun came and found him and cut through blankets with its light and cut through leaves with its light and cut through skin with its light showing the outline of bones and the outline of veins and how very, very red blood was.

Sometimes when he stood watching the lake, and the sun came and ruined the world, Fingon would come and place his arms about him and say nothing. And then the colours would begin to resolve themselves, and the blurred shapes would grow outlines, and he would feel Fingon's face against his back and feel his breaths drawn in and out, and he would remember how to breathe.

After they had stood counting breaths into the hundreds he would remember how to move, and he would touch his son's hands and tell him that he hated sunlight. And Fingon would press his forehead against his back, and hold him tighter, and tell him how it was better than darkness, and he would hold Fingon's hands and never answer because he did not want to argue.

And then they would stand there, in the light, and not speak about the darkness and the stars and cold that they ran through until the grinding stilled and their screams became silence because their throats went raw and then froze and they had all forgotten how to cry anyway.

Finally, when they were done not talking, Fingon would lead him away from the edge of the lake and get him food and he would eat it because Fingon said that they were glad they had survived. And because Fingon smiled when he saw him eat. And because Fingon had braided sunlight into his hair, and he was too afraid of it to run away.

In the evenings he would go to the lake again and watch the sun build a bridge across its surface and wonder why it had not been there to do that the night his brother had burnt the ships. The fire had built a bridge that night, but it had been a short one too far away, shivering with heat. The sun's bridge looked safer, but he had never tried it. He did not want to cross it this time. He was already where they had all wanted to be.


End file.
